


西に行け

by InfinityIllusion



Category: Saiyuki
Genre: Gen, Poetry, Thoughts on the Journey maybe?, i've NO idea how to tag this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-25
Updated: 2016-06-25
Packaged: 2018-07-18 01:52:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7294759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InfinityIllusion/pseuds/InfinityIllusion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(Nishi ni Ike: Go West)</p><p>It's four men on the road at the request of Kannon Bosatsu, but there are other machinations, and they're not blind.</p><p>But it thrums in their chests, that divine command "go west, west, west."</p>
            </blockquote>





	西に行け

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spj](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spj/gifts).



> Okay, so in the actual version of Journey to the West, Gojyo is apparently a "water buffalo," or at least referred to as such on occasion, while Hakkai is a pig. While this is changed in Saiyuki canon, there are references to these aspects of the original in some of the lines.
> 
> Thanks to spj for convincing me to post this (apparently it works a lot better when readers actually know what I'm referencing -- but I guess we know that that teacher had never read Saiyuki, huh?) and because gosh dang it I wanna cosplay them so bad, too.
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own anything except the poem.

* * *

 I.

A centipede’s stinger, a bottle of gin,  
a Zippo lighter,  
a maniacal grin on a face full of missing teeth  
that I found in the bottom of a storm drain  
told me to go west and find  
the kappa, the monkey, the swine  
and continue to the world’s end –  
mountain fingers, manicured with snow, cracking the sky  
so bodhisattvas might grace the land once again  
in finery I lost a lifetime  
(two? three?)  
ago, when Kannon was banned from giving  
Mercy  
a word I lost as the village river rat  
half drowned and waiting for death  
until the head of the monastery took me in  
with kindness that soothed my edges and sharpened my wit.  
But  
sometimes kindness in a soul  
doesn’t ignite a similar flame  
like sparks from a tipped firework  
sputtering on the ground as dying worms writhing under the baking sun  
against diamond hard amethyst shields  
spattered with blood and damming (damning) tears,  
holy and cursed  
(not from blood but actions seized –

go west young man,

go west young man,

west, west, west.)

A pawn to previous uncles, aunts,  
the emperor in Heaven.

 

II.

I was just a scholar  
content to hide in scrolls and fields  
with her curved worn fabric lips  
the pale blush of predawn.

 

Without her,  
I never expected to outlive revenge  
and choked on my own survival,  
tried to sever some internal cord for Fate to take me.  
Except…  
I was reborn a new man,  
a healer, not the slayer of a thousand strong –  
a curse upon them for those with a grudge  
large enough to make Heaven tremble  
– is he awake?  
The general, returned? –  
Traditional, meddlesome fools.  
Why save Heaven when they can’t save themselves?  
Though, anarchy and bloodshed –  
enough malicious interplay  
a lesser evil, a lesser poison  
a known evil for those who remember  
(poor monkey memory locked,  
a water creature cursed across the land,  
a suppressed – hah! – swine –  
and the priest decreed to manage us all….)

Remember, remember  
when Mercy was blocked,  
a trial, a farce,  
an exile.

Knight, rook, bishop, queen for the  
 _Great Heaven_  
soldiers on the march –  
west. west. west.

There’s a demon to the west.  
(Well, there’s a demon here, too.)

 

III.

Stranded, banished son,  
lost at birth and once again  
in blind maternal hatred with Harpy claws  
remaining uncontrolled like those who succumbed  
to a negative wave  
from the west…from the west.  
Scorn hardens, anger burns in deep water  
under cigarette ashes, softly smoking  
in a dish, on an unfinished table  
mixing with the musk of sex  
from bedrooms of bars  
won from poker games – or any type of cards,  
a niche  
in a world that scorns half-breeds.

 

“Well, forget you, too, _snobs_ ,  
I’ve survived in the gutter you all make  
by your simple existence on this stupid rock in space  
and come out better for it.  
(Who takes in a bleeding, dying man,  
patches him up only to find  
he wishes you didn’t.  
Except the bodhisattvas have a different plan  
for a shitty priest,  
 _who made_ him _a holy man?  
_ a dumb monkey  
and the weird guy I saved…  
who’s really fucking scary.)  
Well, if I have to die someday  
no one can say I never did anything, now  
as a reluctantly _hired_ merc for Heaven.”

 

IV.

Thinking is overrated –  
the kappa can fight me for it  
(he’d certainly bite me, too)  
when all I’ve done for countless years  
is stare at the sky – Heaven’s bounds – and think  
think  
            think  
                        t  
                         h  
                           i  
                            n  
                              k  
about memories I didn’t have  
with hunger as my sole companion and guide  
in a cave on a mountain beyond the snow line  
and wishing for peaches.

 

I got my peaches…hard won, those,  
hand in with a priest that curses,  
smokes and fights  
the world and Heaven as we’re pitted against,  
against…  
against us.

 

We march west,  
the priest, the monkey, the kappa, the healer (the slayer)  
and if we’re not only soldiers of a holy war  
at least we’re not fully blind  
to the machinations behind the cerulean veil.  
So I’ll march,  
fight with a smile and juvenile complaints  
because  
those in Heaven haven’t realized  
this war is just a warm-up.

 

V.

One gun, banished  
            sutra torn and will broken  
lay beside two hands – gone  
an iron bident, twisted  
a bō staff, crack  
crumbled ruins when you pay for the world.

* * *

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~Fini~


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